When I was tucking Maria in after stories tonight, she turned to me and said: “Mommy, I was thinking about making a toy wheelchair. I’m going to need a carpet square, some cardboard, scissors and glue… oh and 2 training wheels and 2 bike wheels. And some tape!”
Not sure where she came up with that and I’m tempted to gather everything for her to see what she could come up with! Love trying to figure out a 5 1/2 year old’s thought process!
Maria is loving school. And I know that Kindergarten is sooo very different than when I attended Kindergarten 30+ years ago, but wow, some of the stuff she tells me is very interesting. This week she has learned what I would refer to as “soft” skills.
Earlier this week when I asked her what she learned at school, she responded “I learned that we are all special in different ways. Like I’m really good at speaking English!”
Last night I met some friends after work, so came home after the kids had dinner, I snuck up on her and tickled her when I got home. And a few minutes later when I asked her what she learned about she said “we learned that my feelings can change every second. Just like when you came home and tickled me, I was surprised, but then I was happy because you were home”
How about that for melting a Mom’s heart??
Last night at dinner, Chad and I were talking about Hurricane Sandy. Of course, Maria was interested in the conversation about a storm, so we were reassuring her that the storm was in the ocean and we are so very very far from the ocean.
She repeated what we told her (with some of her own added context). And Charlie started yelling at her: “Ree-rah, I talking to Daddy. Be quiet!”. He repeated this a few times.
So we stopped Maria’s conversation so Charlie could speak and he said “Daddy, fish live in water. Boat on top of water.”
Charlie just wants his share of the dinner conversation! We have TWO talkers!
This week with our daycare being closed, Charlie has been driving downtown with us to the backup daycare that my work subsidizes (awesome benefit).
We drive in the HOV lane and tend to cruise by the cars in the slower lanes. Both mornings this week, Charlie has piped up from the back: “Watch out, Cars! Coming through, Cars!”
Over the last few days I have noticed that Charlie has started to refer to himself in the First Person. I don’t even remember this transition with Maria and probably because her speech was so much more clear. But this is what we have heard:
Me: “Charlie, where are you?”
Charlie: “My Room”
Me: “Who made this mess?”
Charlie: “ME!”
Me: “Whose toy is this?”
Charlie: “MINE!”
Kind of sad to not hear him say “Tar-EE” (Charlie) as much though.
Maria graduates from preschool on Thursday. They are having a graduation ceremony now, but Maria will continue through the summer. But since some kids are done this week, she knows about summer break.
Last week, she asked me if when she went to Kindergarten if they had Fall, Winter & Spring Breaks too. And when I said yes, she looked like she was about to cry and responded: “But if they have Fall, Winter, Spring AND Summer break, I’ll never be in Kindergarten!”
I then carefully explained that Summer Break was the only break that lasted more than a week!
“Wear these to work tomorrow”
On Saturday I left before Charlie was up from his nap for an evening out with some friends. The next morning, I heard Charlie in his crib saying “Mama? Maaaama?”
When I went in there and looked over the crib, he looked at me and said “Wuv Mama”. I picked him up and he hugged me and said “Wuv Mama” again.
Tonight, he crawled into my lap and put his head on my shoulder and I said to Chad, “Look, Mama’s got a Cuddlebug” and Charlie said, “Mama’s cudd-a-bu”.
Awww….
In the past 2-3 weeks, Charlie’s vocabulary has exploded! Maria at this age was already an active talker. Charlie is just a slow talker.. he gets everything else! He understands a lot, just has never verbalized it, so he is already putting words together to get sentences. And he is also ennunciating the words he knew better. About a week ago, he added in the letter “K” sounds to many one syllable words and it is so cute when he says them…
Here’s a list of words I can remember:
booK, nuK, rocK, pray, on, light on, elmo, dora, um-tucK (dump truck), snaCK, ya-ya (Maria), baTH, duCK,
Other Charlie observations:
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